Finally got the last row in the ground, two sweet peppers and a hot. Garden is all tomatoes and peppers so far. I may add a single Ichiban eggplant if I find one, but I'm good with a salsa garden, too. Now if I can just keep the motivation to till it regularly enough to knock the weeds down.

It's been chilly around here, aside from our unseasonably warm day a week or so ago, but we got the tomato plants into the garden yesterday. More specifically, we fertilized, tilled, made rows, and put the tomatoes in. The rule of thumb around these parts is that you don't plant until after the snow is all off of Schaffer Butte, but if we did that this year it would be mid-June before we plant.

I think my one tomato plant is cursed this year. First the main stem broke and I nursed it back to health so I could replant it in the bucket. Then it was growing really slowly, probably because the weather's been so weird.

And today, while I was trying to straighten out the upside-down bucket, the handle broke. Luckily, I caught it before it completely fell to the ground. I swapped to a spare bucket, but I think the plant got a bit mangled before I got it planted properly.

I had *just* planted some rat-tail radish seeds I got from Baeocystin a few days ago, too, so now said seeds are probably jumbled in the tomato bucket.

Barring record cold like last year, the 10 day forecast mostly says I have clear sailing into the growing season.

The sweet potatoes are bouncing back from the hard freeze a couple weeks ago, have new sprouts popping up on all the plants.

The peanuts took a beating from a windstorm last week, blew off over half the leaves. Had a surplus tomato snap in the wind too, repotted it into a very deep pot and it's starting to look like it may pull through.

The corn and zucchini are sprouting and even a few of a handful of apple seeds I planted are emerging.

Deer have once again become an issue, they were chewing off the new greenery on the grapes and pear trees - those are now wrapped in deer netting.

thats hardcore. very hard to get apples to grow from seed AND PRODUCE FRUIT. most apples are not self-fruitful. you have to fertilise them from another variety of apple. most all apples trees cant pollinate themselves, and the seed planted will, if it produces fruit be of one of its its grandparent trees, not its parent tree.

if you have a crabapple anywhere around, you'll get nothing but crabapples and unedible apples. :/

glad you got some growing, they have a low, like 20-25-30% chance of germinating.

thats hardcore. very hard to get apples to grow from seed AND PRODUCE FRUIT. most apples are not self-fruitful. you have to fertilise them from another variety of apple. most all apples trees cant pollinate themselves, and the seed planted will, if it produces fruit be of one of its its grandparent trees, not its parent tree.

if you have a crabapple anywhere around, you'll get nothing but crabapples and unedible apples. :/

glad you got some growing, they have a low, like 20-25-30% chance of germinating.

My experience is pretty much the opposite.

I had an apple tree in my back yard when I was growing up whose seeds came from a Jonathon apple (the only apple my mom ever bought). There was a crab apple in the front yard. The nearest apple tree that I knew of was over a mile away (and wild). The apples were delicious and plentiful about 6-8 years after it started growing.

thats hardcore. very hard to get apples to grow from seed AND PRODUCE FRUIT. most apples are not self-fruitful. you have to fertilise them from another variety of apple. most all apples trees cant pollinate themselves, and the seed planted will, if it produces fruit be of one of its its grandparent trees, not its parent tree.

if you have a crabapple anywhere around, you'll get nothing but crabapples and unedible apples. :/

glad you got some growing, they have a low, like 20-25-30% chance of germinating.

The apples were known varieties from local orchards, the offspring should fall within about a half dozen well known primary or hybrid types, won't really know until we get fruit.

Basil batch 3 died as apparently the basil I found in my fridge and planted wasn't supposed to be refrigerated. Basil batch #4 died when my wife found my basil pot with freshly planted seeds... and planted it full of flowers she bought.So giving that up I scattered peat moss under a tree and planted that with purple basil.... next day I find that squirrels have gone to town on it.

Last year, our family (both my wife and I, along with some extended relatives in the area) decided to make a family garden on our property. Thus, I was asked to make a garden . I spent much of last summer working on a 5' tall fence for the garden. It was finished far too late to actually plant anything, so we had a nice 20'x40' fenced in grassy area in our yard for the last half of the summer.

Zoom forward to this spring. After 2 weekends of building boxes, and mixing our own soil, we're ready to plant.

We have 4 9'x3' beds, 8 8'x2' beds, and 6 6'x2' beds. I left a 15'x10' area in the center open. We'll be doing roughly a 50/50 split between flowers and veggies. In the open area in the middle, I'll be building a picnic table next weekend. Should be a great area to hang out in during the too short Minnesota summers.

Over the course of this project, I have come across a few things that "Make one feel like a MAN."

Digging 4' deep post holes with a giant auger- makes one feel like a MAN (Special thanks to Dr. Faulkin for his help!).

Building a fence from scratch - MAN

Getting pickup trucks loaded with pea gravel, directly from the quarry (giant front-end loaders dumping rock in the bed of the truck)- TESTOSTERONE

Shoveling tons of composted manure out of the back of said truck - Icky? Perhaps... MANLY? Definitely.

Mixing yards of soil by hand. MAN TIME.

Taking a knee, Picking up a handful of freshly mixed soil, crumbling it while nodding with approval.. Thats a MAN thing to do.

And now, to go plant some pretty flowers.

Here are a few shots of the progression...

Spoiler: show

Weed cloth down, boxes built and leveled...

And after mixing several cubic yards of soil, and laying down mulch in between the beds...

Basil batch 3 died as apparently the basil I found in my fridge and planted wasn't supposed to be refrigerated. Basil batch #4 died when my wife found my basil pot with freshly planted seeds... and planted it full of flowers she bought.So giving that up I scattered peat moss under a tree and planted that with purple basil.... next day I find that squirrels have gone to town on it.

I thought I'd killed a small sweet basil plant when I forgot to water it. It was still in the peat pot and I left it out for a couple days. It seems to have perked up after some water, plus I actually got it in the ground before it rained for a couple of days. Not sure how the mint will do and I'm pretty sure the parsley is dead.

Did someone say "gardening?" Over the course of this project, I have come across a few things that "Make one feel like a MAN."

Digging 4' deep post holes with a giant auger- makes one feel like a MAN (Special thanks to Dr. Faulkin for his help!).

Building a fence from scratch - MAN

Getting pickup trucks loaded with pea gravel, directly from the quarry (giant front-end loaders dumping rock in the bed of the truck)- TESTOSTERONE

Shoveling tons of composted manure out of the back of said truck - Icky? Perhaps... MANLY? Definitely.

Mixing yards of soil by hand. MAN TIME.

Taking a knee, Picking up a handful of freshly mixed soil, crumbling it while nodding with approval.. Thats a MAN thing to do.

Egads, that's an impressive list. I found a place in SF that gives out unlimited free compost, though you have to load it yourself. Just loading up about a dozen 5-gallon buckets of compost (with mom's help) wore me out. I can't imagine doing all you did.

Egads, that's an impressive list. I found a place in SF that gives out unlimited free compost, though you have to load it yourself. Just loading up about a dozen 5-gallon buckets of compost (with mom's help) wore me out. I can't imagine doing all you did.

That is where heavy equipment comes in..

For example, for setting the fence posts we used 2 full pickup truck loads of 1/4" gravel. So two trips to the quarry, where they use their huge machinery to fill the pickup bed with gravel. Drive it home, and shovel/rake/slide it off the truck into a pile (MUCH easier to go from the truck bed --> ground than the other way around). Then, over the course of about 2 weeks, I did a post or two, here and there as time permitted- shovel from the pile into a wheel barrow, stake a post in place, then dump the gravel into the hole.

The same was true of the compost for the soil and mulch for between the beds (1 full pickup load of composted manure, 2 full loads of assorted green compost, 3 loads of mulch) all loaded into the pickup with a bobcat, then simply raked/shoveled out of the truck into a pile once home.

The rest of the ingredients for the soil came packaged (peat and vermiculite) and are quite light in weight (a huge, 4-cubic foot bag of vermiculite might weigh 20lbs).

I think the hardest part of this whole thing was building and installing the fence panels. I had to get fancy, and instead of doing a simple wire mesh wrapped around the posts, made picture frame panels with mesh in the middle. It looks very nice, but man, was it a pain to build/install.

[*]Getting pickup trucks loaded with pea gravel, directly from the quarry (giant front-end loaders dumping rock in the bed of the truck)- TESTOSTERONE

Pulling into the weigh station with your 26,000+lb pickup: priceless!

Well actually not priceless, it made the state patrol grouchy the one time I did it (Hey, the sign said all trucks over 24,000 have to weigh in!).

Note: do not do this with a normal pickup, you will break it. My foreman pickup was leaf springs all the way up in back so filling the back with a few yards of trap was manageable. The dualies were justified and not just for fashion.

MarkLT1, your raised beds/fenced area look awesome. That is some quality work right there.

Crackhead Johny wrote:

Metaxa wrote:

Not sure how the mint will do and I'm pretty sure the parsley is dead.

Once you get the mint established you cannot kill it. I once saw a squad of SEALS pull out bolo knifes and wade into a patch of established mint... they were never seen again.

The basil is amusing me, as I generally never kill plants that I do not intend to kill.

Seriously, I stalled out a tiller once in a patch of mint.

It's funny because it's true.

It's only funny if it happens to someone else (and that someone else doesn't share a property line with you)

MarkLT1, I officially have garden envy - I managed to put in some raised beds last year, but so far have failed to extend my crappy fences far enough to contain them. With kid #2 born in late February, it's been all I can do this year to just get seeds started and keep them alive. So far so good on that front, but I either need to transplant into large pots soon or get off my ass and get them into the beds.

Also, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say "fuck squirrels". Not only have they run me out of the tomato-growing business, but they're apparently clever enough to pry the chickenwire off the top of my potted lettuce plants, and evil enough to chew up every single leaf just enough ruin them. And of course, this is in addition to digging up anything and everything they get near, especially seedlings in 4" pots. I'm seriously thinking about shooting and/or poisoning the little fuckers. Do you suppose a dead squirrel carcass nailed up in the middle of the garden would deter the rest, or make them do really nasty things like invade my house?

Also, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say "fuck squirrels". Not only have they run me out of the tomato-growing business, but they're apparently clever enough to pry the chickenwire off the top of my potted lettuce plants, and evil enough to chew up every single leaf just enough ruin them. And of course, this is in addition to digging up anything and everything they get near, especially seedlings in 4" pots. I'm seriously thinking about shooting and/or poisoning the little fuckers. Do you suppose a dead squirrel carcass nailed up in the middle of the garden would deter the rest, or make them do really nasty things like invade my house?

Nailing a dead crow to a board will keep crows away. At least for a little bit. Might be worth a shot...squirrels are smart little bastards. They might understand the implied threat.

We have a cat, but he's old, fat, and diabetic - and even in his best days he rarely liked catching squirrels, instead preferring to chase and torment them. The other problem with an outdoor cat is that my wife is a big birdwatcher, and she would not take kindly to the carnage that would ensure. At one time we did have a stray who frequented our yard - a big tom we named "Lucifer" for his creepy eyes. He'd hide under the deck and pick the squirrels off as they came down. He made an incredible dent in the squirrel population (at one point I counted six different dismembered squirrel tails in our relatively small yard), but that was years ago, and they've since rallied. A big red-shouldered hawk picked off a few babies (out of a nest, no less!) the other day, but the hawks are not really making much of a dent - too many trees and not enough open space, I figure.

stale beer! put some in a dish (deep so the slugs cant reach the top), put the rim at ground level, in they go coz they are boozers and LOVE it... and they drown and can go in the compost with the beer!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! This will be our first time doing larger scale gardening than a small bed or two with a few veggies, and some flowers in boxes, so we'll see how it goes!

Today's project was the garden gate. I threw together this plan last night, then after work went out and picked up the lumber. Came back, and started working, and for once, a carpentry project seemed to just go smoothly. Just as the sun was setting, it was finished (though there wasn't enough light to take a picture, so that will have to wait until tomorrow). It actually matched the plan picture quite well- a little bit of a craftsman look to the entry.

Haha, from your perspective I can see how my "lawn" appears rather poor. However I had nothing but construction debris and garbage back there when I moved in last year.

Phase one was to clear all the junk out and to allow local flora to do its thing, which meant a crazy morning glory thicket that took over everything. Check that out:

The process of pulling that all out, as labor intensive as it was, helped aerate the soil enough for some grasses to begin to grow. The grasses are quickly spreading and I'm very happy for that, since I did not seed for grasses at all. I figure by next year, I'll have some decent lawn cover back there. Might even try to cultivate some pillow moss near my gutter downspout in the shade.

Yeah, morning glories are nice, but man...they'll take over your yard if you let them.

I planted some next to my tomatoes as a "companion" plant last year and by the end of the season (when I admittedly got a little lazy), you could hardly even see the tomato plants anymore. I was just pissed off, because my tomatoes got such a slow start and then the fucking hornworms came...I basically got nothing from any of my plants except the cherry tomato. So I just let it all go to seed.

So in the interests of science, I'm conducting a little experiment. In one pot, I'll be planting the seeds on the left, and in another, the right.

While working in the garden, I noticed a few dried-up pods from last years' Masai bean crop. They had apparently overwintered with no ill effect, and popped out of the dried husks with ease. Compared to the store-bought ones, they're noticeably plumper. I don't think they would have had the chance to cross with anything other than themselves, but it'll be fun to see what pops up!

Not sure how the mint will do and I'm pretty sure the parsley is dead.

Once you get the mint established you cannot kill it. I once saw a squad of SEALS pull out bolo knifes and wade into a patch of established mint... they were never seen again.

The basil is amusing me, as I generally never kill plants that I do not intend to kill.

Seriously, I stalled out a tiller once in a patch of mint.

It's funny because it's true.

Oh, I know. We had mint beds under a couple of peach trees when I was little. We mowed them completely to the ground a couple times a year; best smelling clippings ever. I'm going to put some down in a bed where nothing else will grow and see if it takes. I'm trying to use as many edible things as I can for ground cover and such so that when the kids inevitably eat stuff it's at least food.